Theology

If you took Troki’s arguments and applied them to rabbinic literature, then the Talmud, the Midrash, and virtually all rabbinic interpretations would fail by the same criteria. It is not fair for the midrashic content of the Gospels to be criticized by the people who use the same midrashic methods.

When Yeshua says that he did not come to bring peace on earth, people interpret his words to mean that he never intended to bring earthly, political peace but only spiritual peace in people’s hearts. But does this explanation hold up when seeing the Gospels in a Jewish context?

Deuteronomy 30 is one of the most important chapters in the Bible. On a personal level, this chapter has had a huge impact upon my life and development as a Messianic Jew. It gave me anxiety and theological paranoia because it created an ongoing problem in my theology.

Israel was, at least from a theological perspective, still in exile. Israel was still suffering the consequences of covenant failure. But all this was now about to change. The shame and humiliation of exile was over.

The King’s University offers both online and on campus accredited degree plans with a concentration on Messianic Jewish Studies. TKU is committed to training Rabbis and teachers in the Messianic Jewish Community and Christian leaders who are called to be bridges between the church and the Jewish people. TKU is an approved school of the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations.

It makes sense that Abraham uses this language while he is still awaiting the promise from HaShem to be fulfilled for his descendants to inherit the land but why does David still use this terminology when the Jewish people are firmly within the land?

Misunderstanding the Bible is dangerous. By the time we are so led astray by our own misplaced zeal, it is too late—we cannot be convinced otherwise; after all, God is on our side, so to abandon our path would be heresy and betrayal.

The theme of this year’s Christ at the Checkpoint conference is “The Gospel in the Face of Religious Extremism.” However, the only religious extremism conference participants seem to have in mind is Zionism. Since its first conference in 2010, Christ at the Checkpoint has proven itself to be anything but the great peacemaker among evangelicals that it purports to be.

While a compilation of Messianic proof-texts is still perhaps the most common tactic employed by evangelists to Jews, such lists are not effective. In the unlikely case you succeed in convincing a Jewish person that Jesus is the Messiah without first revealing him to be a devout Jew, committed to his people and to the Torah, then what kind of disciple have you made?

For Christians, there is nothing more important than developing an accurate understanding of the Bible. For precisely this reason, I think Christians should not be reading it. How can I say that? Simple: because reading the Bible without understanding it can be worse than not reading it at all.

It’s important to recognize that there are two different gods operating behind the technological religion of consumption and the religion of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Behind the latter is the one, true, God—the I Am. But behind the former is Mammon, the god of consumption and wealth who slowly takes more and more, giving less and less in return.

Secondary orality isn’t going to be a perfect, resurrected replica of the “primary” orality that saw the rise of Judaism. It’s going to be a cyborg blend of the written, print, and electronic traditions—a blend that may seek to restore the communal value of oral culture.

The theological moorings of Messianic Judaism have a way of reconciling contradictions. I think Messianic Judaism offers a more careful, nuanced, and liturgical perspective on even the most mundane things as technology. I am on a quiet crusade against the culture that dictates kids my age should have their noses buried in the light of retina screens.

Wyschogrod is a popular name among Jewish and Christian scholars. He spoke mainly on the irrevocable election of Israel. While he was a Modern Orthodox Jew, he had strong relationships with theologians of other faith traditions. He also conversed with Messianic Jews, and I had the opportunity on a few occasions to meet with him.

As the new generation takes positions of leadership in the Evangelical Churches of America, Christian Zionism and support for Israel is vanishing. Today’s Millennial Christians who have already bought into the notion that blanket condemnation of the state of Israel is a moral obligation incumbent upon every thinking, ethical human being.

Given that Christmas Eve was a favorite time for raids, pogroms, and marauding, certain practices developed in Jewish communities as a result. Some of them were pragmatic, a matter of survival; others were symbolic, to show disdain for the enemies of the Jewish people. May we never see those dark times again.

Imagine if the President declared, "I have fulfilled every aspect of the Constitution of the United States perfectly. Now that it is fulfilled, its authority over this nation has been put to an end in me. Today I tell you, the United States has only one law: that you love one another."

In the Torah, God said to Abraham, “To your offspring I will give this land.” Hebrews says that Abraham was looking forward to a heavenly country, to “the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” Does that mean that the promises of land to his offspring are not to be literally fulfilled?

FREE EBOOK: Continued Jewish identity among Jesus-believers is not merely an ethnic or cultural curiosity; it has theological significance. Major implications include the validation of Jewish tradition and practice for Jewish believers, as well as recognition of them as the living connection between the nations and Israel

The idea of replacement continued under the reign of the Catholic Church, and was manifested in the Crusades, expulsions of Jews from Christian nations, and the tortures of the Inquisitions, that few know continued officially until the beginning of the nineteenth century in Brazil.